The present invention relates to a hand operated tool for removing aquatic vegetation from bodies of water such as ponds, lakes and ocean shorelines, for example.
Vegetation (e.g., cattails) growing in the water near a shore line is undesirable when it interferes with people trying to enjoy the water (e.g., during swimming, fishing, and boating, for example). While there have been many methods and tools proposed in the past to remove the vegetation, these prior tools and methods have not been entirely satisfactory in performance and ease of use. For example, some proposed tools have elongated, V-shaped blades which are pulled through the vegetation to cut through the stalks of the plants. The tool is manually pulled by a line by a person standing along the shoreline. Should the line break, the person would then have to wade into the water to retrieve the blade head, a potentially dangerous situation should the person accidentally step on a submerged head in the water, for example. The blades on this tool are also very sharp and dangerous to work with, particularly when moving the tool into and out of the water and storage. Furthermore, the angle of the blades and direction of pull (i.e., a sharp “V” configuration where the point of the “V” points in the direction of travel against the plants) limits the cutting swath and cutting angle such that it takes many draws of the tool through the water to cut away a large area of vegetation. Yet a still further potential problem with some V-shaped blade designs is the fact that many people would find it too large to easily and safely handle.
There therefore remains a need for a water plant removal rake that is easy to use and effective for removing large swaths of water plants during a single pull operation of the tool through the water, and is safe to handle and use.